1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to a high speed data storage system with improved data transmission performance for hard disks.
2. Description of Related Art
In a typical high speed data storage system with a large capacity, two or more control panels are included for processing read requests (data readout requests) and write requests (data write requests) at high speed by parallel operation of a large number of hard disks.
Referring to FIG. 2, a conventional high speed data storage system 10 includes a disk array, a midplane 14, a first control panel 11 and a second control panel 12. The disk array includes twenty-four hard disks 13. Each of the first and second control panels 11, 12 includes control chips 110, 120 and connectors 112, 122. A plurality of first printed circuit wires 113, 123 for electrically connecting the control chips 110, 120 with the connectors 112, 122 is layered in each of the first and second control panels 11, 12. The midplane 14 includes first and second connecting sockets 141, 142 at a first side, and a plurality of connecting ports 146 at a second side opposite to the first side. A plurality of second printed circuit wires 144, 145 for electrically connecting each of the first and second connecting sockets 141, 142 with the connecting ports 146 is layered in the midplane 14.
When the high speed data storage system 10 is assembled, the hard disks 13 connect with the connecting ports 146 of the midplane 14, respectively; and the connectors 112, 122 of the first and second control panels 11, 12 connect with the first and second connecting sockets 141, 142, of the midplane 14, respectively. Thus, the control chips 110, 120 of each of the first and second control panels 11, 12 electrically connect each of the hard disks 13 by corresponding first printed circuit wires 113, 123 and corresponding second printed circuit wires 144, 145. During operation, control signals from each of the control chips 110, 120 are transmitted to each of the hard disks 13 by the corresponding first printed circuit wires 113, 123 and the corresponding second printed circuit wires 144, 145. Therefore, a length of a transmission path for the control signals between each of the control chips 110, 120 and each of the hard disks 13 is substantially equal to a sum of lengths of the corresponding first printed circuit wires 113, 123 and the corresponding second printed circuit wires 144, 145.
The transmission paths between the control chip 110 of the first control panel 11 and the hard disks 13 are referred to as first channels hereinafter. The transmission paths between the control chip 120 of the second control panel 12 and the hard disks 13 are referred to as second channels hereinafter. Due to the first printed circuit wires 113, 123 of each of the first and second control panels 11, 12 corresponding to different hard disks 13 and the second printed circuit wires 144, 145 of the midplane 14 corresponding to the different hard disks 13 being different from each other, lengths of the first channels and lengths of the second channels are also different from each other. The following are symbols used in the conventional high speed data storage system 10:                x: serial number of one hard disk 13;        L: length of the first printed circuit wires 113, 123 of each of the first and second control panels 11, 12 corresponding to the hard disk 13;        h1: length of the second printed circuit wire 144 corresponding to the hard disk 13 and connected between the first connecting socket 141 and the corresponding connecting port 146;        h2: length of the second printed circuit wire 145 corresponding to the hard disk 13 and connected between the second connecting socket 142 and the corresponding connecting port 146;        ttl1: length of the corresponding first channel; and        ttl2: length of the corresponding second channel.        
Table 1 shows data of x, L, h1, h2, ttl1, and ttl2 of the high speed data storage system 10.
TABLE 1xL (mil)h1 (mil)h2 (mil)ttl1 (mil)ttl2 (mil)12070.4910812181012882.493880.4921933.3910251167112184.393604.3931776.099890222911666.094005.0941639.9210235288011874.924519.9251629.768436344910065.765078.7661571.38786340609434.385631.3871572.0912221228613793.093858.0981473.5511010282812483.554301.5591530.799670339811200.794928.79101504.098640409010144.095594.09111553.69792645539479.696106.69121604.88704153068645.886910.88131637.18550355697140.187206.18141725.96490874446633.969169.96152430.9435083146780.910744.9162518.53786102446304.512762.5172618.873289114835907.8714101.87182558.852862125895420.8515147.85193746.58257894256324.5813171.58203828.642251104416079.6414269.64213971.152629113336600.1515304.15223989.033289113827278.0315371.03234219.63991120858210.616304.60244358.514607127118965.5117069.51
According to table 1, a maximum length of the second channels (i.e., 17069.51 mil) exceeds a maximum length of the first channels (i.e., 13793.09 mil) by more than 3 inches (i.e., 3276.42 mil), and the lengths of several second channels are larger than the maximum length of the first channels. Thus, a transmission performance between the control chip 120 of the second control panel 12 and the hard disks 13 is liable to be much worse than a transmission performance between the control chip 110 of the first control panel 11 and the hard disks 13. This adversely affects writing and reading speeds of the high speed data storage system 10.
It is thus desirable to provide a high speed data storage system which can overcome the described limitations.